Summary: RELEASE DATE: 13 October 2010
SOURCE: http://gmj.gallup.com
CONTACT: The Gallup Management Journal
INFORMATION: Editorial and Executive Offices
1251 Avenue of the Americas, Suite 2350
New York, NY 10020
888-274-5447
They might not know who you are. But they can make you fat or thin, they can
make you smoke or quit, they can make you happy or sad -- and they don't even
mean to. They do know the people that you know -- and that's how your network
of friends, their friends, and their friends' friends influence you. And rest
assured, you're doing the same thing to them.
This process, called social contagion, was
made famous in the widely discussed book
Connected: The Surprising Power of Our
Social Networks and How They Shape Our
Lives by Harvard professor Nicholas
Christakis, M.D., Ph.D., and James Fowler,
Ph.D., a professor at the University of
California, San Diego. Social contagion works